Replaying history: learning world history through playing

Geography as a Tool

Students continued to explore the properties of Civilization III and the differences between an historical simulation and a scripted interactive narrative. Late in the day, Dwayne angered a neighboring civilization, and said to Kent, “I think I might start World War I.” A few weeks earlier, I had explained the causes of World War I to Dwayne, which he planned to turn into strategy for use against the Chinese. Now, in a different game, Dwayne realized that he might have set off a chain of events that would lead to world war. Kent was still struggling to understand the game as a simulation as opposed to an interactive narrative, and asked, “Kurt, does the game have World War I in here?” I explained that there were no pre-scripted events, but that they could start their own World Wars through alliances. I gave Kent a version of the lecture that I gave Dwayne, this time using Dwayne’s game as another example of entangling alliances. Using the foreign relations screen, I showed him how two civilizations in his game had mutual protection pacts similar to Dwayne’s prior situation. “So, if you attack either of them, they’ll go to war with you. That’s a bit like how World War I started.” Dwayne had appropriated my explanation of World War I, now referred to the war about to ensue in his current game as World War I, which in turn prompted a discussion of simulated systems and interactive narratives. Both Dwayne’s and Kent’s games became artifacts mediating their developing understanding.

Kent struggled in the game and was becoming increasingly frustrated, so I suggested using knowledge of geography as a tool to catch up to other civilizations. Kent said, “These people (the other civilizations) make me sick. I’m in 1752 and I can’t make my ships go no where… minus three (gold) per turn. Christ!” Just as frustrating, other civilizations would not even trade maps without asking for hundreds in gold. I suggested that Kent “catch up” by sailing to North America using a galley, much like the Vikings did. I explained how he could go from England to Ireland to Iceland to Greenland and on to Canada. He got excited about this idea and set out for the new world. I tried to suggest to Kent (as I did earlier to Jason) that players could use their knowledge of geography as a “cheat” for succeeding in the game, by anticipating passage routes and the location of natural resources.

Socially-Mediated Play

When Kent and Dwayne discussed the relative merits of communism, emergent shared understandings became more political. Dwayne had the opportunity to begin researching communism. Kent said, “Communism? I’d never go for communism!” Dwayne agreed that communism was not desirable. I intervened, explaining that, regardless of their opinion of communism, as an idea, it led to social improvements, such as Social Security and new city improvements. Once Kent found out that he could learn the “technology” of communism without switching governments, he thought that pursuing it was a good idea, and Dwayne agreed. Kent’s evaluation of Dwayne’s choices in the game give Dwayne pause for consideration, first admonishing him for studying communism but then reinforcing his position, in the end agreeing that “discovering” communism was acceptable as long as Dwayne’s people did not become communist. I tried to mediate their conversation, explaining the role of communism in the game and in United States social history and making links between the two.

I ended the class with a quick wrap-up of the day’s activities and tomorrow’s plans. I distributed game manuals and had each student turn to pages giving the explanation of each civilization’s advantages. I explained that the game is a simulation of how civilizations evolve, and a very imperfect one at that. I said, “Anything that tries to simulate the entire history of the world is bound to leave some things out.” I asked them if they thought that the differences between the Germans and the Bantu could be reduced to an extra army or a free technology difference. They answered, “No,” and then I explained that these slight differences could end up in very different game experiences, which is typical of a simulation. I brought up the case of the Aborigines, who had less access to resources, which resulted in them remaining a very small, struggling civilization in each game. I mentioned that, at the same time, “We noticed that in 1800 most of us hadn’t even crossed the seas yet, which is not very realistic. So tomorrow, we’ll talk more about the nature of simulations.” They listened to the lecture half-heartedly, but overall, I was pleased to have introduced the concepts.